San Francisco, CA – DLA Piper LLP
On January 24, 2018 the Robert Bosch Alumni Association and TransatlanticWest co-hosted a Transatlantic networking event with their sponsor, DLA Piper LLP’s San Francisco office. TransatlanticWest, a production of Summit Pioneer, was founded by Summit Pioneer CEO Michael Fernandez, and his co-founder Dean Faelk, Partner at DLA Piper. The idea came about, because RBFAA members have been attending TransatlanticWest’s events, which focus on the US West Coast-European relationship with decision makers from business and politics including alumni from prestigious fellowships, so bringing together our two organizations was a natural fit within the Bay Area’s Transatlantic community.
The Bay Area may not be as robust as other metropolitan centers with opportunities to network with Transatlantic partners, but over the last several years those opportunities have increased, perhaps attributable to the area’s thriving tech industry. TransatlanticWest’s establishment filled a need in the area for more high-level networking events. Their mission is to bring together innovators from business, government, and inter-governmental organizations from Europe and the US West Coast with the objective to facilitate introductions and build relationships that engage in thoughtful dialogue and to unleash the potential of the “transatlantic west” relationship. This is relevant from both a geo-political perspective and also from an economics perspective. From California alone, Europe purchases nearly $30 billion worth of goods and nearly 30% of Californian exports to Europe consist of high-tech goods, and TransatlanticWest’s statistics also note that European affiliates support over 280,000 California jobs.
The event kicked-off what we hope will be many future networking events between the two groups. Attending from the RBFAA were several local alumni including: Anthony Yuen, Tim Stumhofer, Emily Olman, Peter Larsen, Monica Slakey, Paul Gallagher, Charlie Altekruse, and Pilar Wolfsteller. This RBFAA regional event was made possible by the generosity of the RBFAA, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, TransatlanticWest, and DLA Piper LLP.
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